


the contrast between war and peace.

by liliessandrosess



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Bucky Barnes Has Nightmares, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, M/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers & Sam Wilson Friendship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-15 12:20:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29808309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liliessandrosess/pseuds/liliessandrosess
Summary: war and peace through bucky barnes’ eyes.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Kudos: 5





	the contrast between war and peace.

**Author's Note:**

> hi!! this is my first stucky fic. hope you like it(:

the sun infiltrated a quiet new york apartment, painting a small boy’s face a rich orange glow. small freckles could be made out, dancing under his eyes. his hair is sprawled against the formless, white pillow in careless strands. drool falls from his strawberry lips, less glamorously than he’d probably like. as he lay there unconscious, taken over by the dreams running his mind, a second boy is awake beside him.

this boy, with his skin a tan coloring due to the countless hours of hard labor under the blazing sun, has coffee brown hair and crystal blue eyes. compared to his counterpart, this boy has a bigger build, his upper half showcasing his muscle without the boundary of a shirt or the thin sheet that lays forgotten around his waist. 

he sighs deeply in bliss, as his own cerulean eyes gaze out the window where the sun is shining through. they’re on the seventh floor, a little ways above the ground. given the height, they were reluctant to rent the place, since steve had always had a fear of falling from a high place. however, the two needed somewhere to reside, especially when steve’s mother passed onto the grave. 

deep in his thoughts, he almost missed the murmur coming from steve’s own lips. the younger shuffles slightly, his eyes blinking slowly in a dream like state. 

“buck?” he says, a hint of a question lacing his sleepy tone.

bucky’s eyes turn back to the smaller boy pressed against his side, as his nimble fingers caress steve’s blonde hair.

“yeah, stevie?” his voice rings out in the quietness of the room, despite living in the most active city in the world. 

“you’re warm.” steve sighs out breathily, snuggling deeper into bucky’s side.

his hands were cold to the touch, one thing that bucky had grown used to. he’d grown up with steve, all throughout his life steve’s vulnerability to illnesses always gave him nerves he could never shake. it felt as if a rabid dog was lurking around the corner, ready to attack and never stop.

bucky snaps out of his thoughts at the sound of a muffled alarm and distant gunshots. he looks to steve, wincing from the piercing cries. he feels like he’s lost his mind when steve doesn’t move, just falls back asleep peacefully, unbothered by the chaos. 

the brunette’s eyebrows furrow as the settings change when he blinks. he’s no longer in bed and his upper half is now covered by a deep green, almost brown jacket. he felt several people run past him, the wind cold on his neck. as his eyes cast forward, there they were.

over the thousands of miles of battlefield, countless bodies laid there. men with wives, families, stories of their own. bucky felt sick, as the ash kept raining down on his soot covered face. 

clutched between his fingers was no longer the soft, freshly cleaned blonde strands from a moment ago, but now, a heavy metal gun. he could identify the gun in the back of his head and judging by how it fit perfectly in his hands, he assumed it was his own. 

he feels grief overcome his entire being, combined with exhaustion. it could’ve been him. his body could have been lifelessly lying on the blood stained grass. bucky’s eyes gloss over at the thought, the black sky reflecting in the dark pools of blood. each soldier died for their country, died for a cause and bucky had the nerve to stand next to them, with his breath caught in his throat.

within a matter of minutes, his legs are moving before his kind catches up. every part of his body feels numb, almost detached from reality. his nose is filled with the metallic smell of blood and ash falling from the austrian air. 

he barely made it back to the camp, trailing behind the remaining soldiers. not one of them escaped without a scratch. bucky felt pain in his left arm, throbbing severely, yet he payed no mind. 

someone, who he recognized as dum dum, a fellow soldier who had tried include bucky in with his own group of friends, comes over to him. bucky’s now sat on a bench, his feet grounding him on the dirt. when dum dum sits on an upturned log adjacent to the bench, bucky avoids eye contact. 

“you alright?” dum dum’s voice floats in the air for a second or two before the bubble pops. 

“yeah, my arm feels like it’s going to fall off, but i’m fine.” bucky says with snark dripping from his tone. 

a beat of silence passes by, with bucky staring at his feet. everything felt too surreal. how is he here? how did he survive? 

“i can see the gears in your head smokin’” dum dum comments, his lips pulling up at the corners a bit. 

“i just don’t feel like i deserve to live, if all of those men died. good men.” saying it out loud made it real and bucky feels like a train had just hit him. 

all throughout his life he hadn’t given a second thought about his self worth, never though about the meaning of life, why he lives. however his positive views seemed to melt away when he realized the front lines weren’t what he thought.

he never thought about men, who he had seen alive and breathing, hoping to go back home, being dead within minutes. he never thought about the smell of death, sweat, or blood. 

dum dum looked to the floor himself, choosing to not comment. his expression looked hurt, confused, and tired. they had been fighting this war for about a year now. in a morbid way, the dead men stopped fighting, they got to rest and sleep peacefully now. however, bucky and the rest of the 107th had to keep fighting, they couldn’t give up now. 

bucky tries to think of anything else, anything other than the weeping men crying for their dead friends. tries not to think about the continuous gunshots that ring out in the air during the night. tries not to think about how cold he is when he sleeps now. tries not to think about how much he misses steve.

steve. that’s why bucky lives and he knows it. that damn firecracker of a boy, who would defend the underdog or pick a fight if someone so much as looked at bucky the wrong way. he’d always lose, but he never stopped trying. bucky misses steve so much. 

he misses the small smile steve would give him whenever he came home from a long day at work. he misses cuddling steve so close in the winter months, that they’d never want to separate. he misses steve’s snarky remarks whenever bucky poked fun at him. bucky misses when steve would whisper in his ear, whenever they took out dames that never interested him, asking to get out there. he missed steve. 

as dum dum looked up from the ground, he seemed to sigh deeply. bucky didn’t know what to say. didn’t know what he could do to make it any better. eventually, when the other started to walk off and the lights began to dim, bucky closed his eyes.


End file.
